Lisa: Writing for ourselves

A couple of years ago, I was in between projects and found myself wanting to write another middle grade novel. When I say "another," understand I had written a couple, years ago, that eventually became drawer novels. I now call them my schooling!

My most cherished memories of books and reading are from that time when I was 8-12 years old. Even today, as much as I love young adult novels, it is often a wonderful mid-grade novel that sticks with me. I think I’ve mentioned my adoration of Kate DiCamillo before. I recently read THE MAGICIAN’S ELEPHANT, and as soon as I shut the book, I turned to page one and started to read again. Another recent middle-grade book that I loved: Barbara O’Connor’s THE SMALL ADVENTURE OF POPEYE AND ELVIS. Two very different books, in both subject matter and tone, but both touched my heart, as the best books do, I suppose.

So, I wanted to do that. I wanted to write a middle-grade book that would touch a reader’s heart. But mostly, I wanted to write about something happy, FOR MYSELF! My young adult novels, while ultimately ending in hope, are sad, and at times, dark. I needed to write something different. Something that the book-loving ten-year-old girl inside of me would love. Would it be published? I probably hoped so, but mostly, I just wanted to have FUN writing a book without any thoughts or worries of the outcome.

Driving home from work one day, I was brainstorming ideas, as I often do when I’m in the car. And I thought – what’s something that just the mention of the word makes people, including me, happy? That’s when cupcakes came to mind. Cupcake shops have become pretty popular in the past few years, so I thought, how fun to set a story in or around a cupcake shop.

As I wrote the story, characters came to me who made me smile. A barber who loves to tell knock-knock jokes. A grandma who has a thing for hats and loves to share stories about the famous people she’s met over the years. An artist who understands the healing power of art. In YA, you have to be careful about quirky characters. Too much, and you will turn readers off. But in MG? I think younger readers enjoy them, when they aren’t too far over the top.

Yet, all the while, amongst the fun characters and happy cupcakes, my main character, Isabel, was struggling. Struggling to keep her mom encouraged about the cupcake shop she was opening. Struggling to figure out a way to make her dream of traveling come true. Struggling to not be envious of her best friend, Sophie, who seemed to get everything she wanted.

Because as much as I wanted to write a happy book, we all know a completely happy main character isn’t going to make a good story. Nor is it going to be very realistic.

Still, I did what I set out to do - the book was so fun to write. I loved hanging out with the characters. I loved seeing the cupcake shop come to life. I loved researching cupcake flavors and tying a different flavor into each chapter and coming up with cute little sayings to go with them.

It was exactly what I needed at the time.

Sometimes, as an author, I think it’s easy to get caught up in trying to write the next big thing, trying to write what will sell, trying to please everyone but ourselves. I'm not saying we shouldn't keep those things in mind when we're thinking about our careers. But once in awhile, if we need to write something for ourselves, if we need to write something *without* thinking of any of that, but just to find the joy in writing, it's okay to give ourselves permission to do it.

I wrote this book, first and foremost, for me. And I have to say, I’m pretty happy with how it turned out.

Yes, my first middle grade novel, IT'S RAINING CUPCAKES, is released today! Now I just hope that lots of kids enjoy reading this book as much as I enjoyed writing it!!

SEA ARC Giveaway Contest! (Heidi)

To celebrate reaching 1,000 followers on Twitter, I'm giving away TWO signed and personalized ARCs of my upcoming novel Sea (June, Putnam).

Enter here!

Cheers!
-Heidi

Megan: Why We Need LGBTQ Books

Back in January I found out that Secrets of Truth & Beauty had been named to the Rainbow List. I'd like to say that this was a pleasant surprise, but really I'd known that it had been nominated, and I'd been aching and hoping for it to be included. The more I work with teens as a librarian, the more I realize that the books on lists like the Rainbow List and the Lambda Literary Awards are vital to have in a collection, not simply for the LGBTQ students, but also for their peers. The recent defeat of same sex marriage and a controversy over a transgendered student in my current home state of Maine have driven home the point that we’ve still got a long way to go in terms of acceptance.

The funny thing is, when I was writing Secrets, the sexuality of the characters was not something that I'd really thought of as a big deal. There are gay people in the world, and so there are gay people in my novel. Nothing revolutionary there, or so I thought.

To be fair, while I wrote most of the first draft, I was living in what can only be called a LGBTQ Friendly Bubble. I lived in the Davis Square area of Somerville, Massachusetts, a stone's throw from uber-liberal Cambridge, and I was working at what could very well be the left-most high school in the America. Many faculty members were out and proud, and sometimes it seemed unusual if a student were not questioning his or her sexuality. This attitude was reflected in early drafts. When Owen described his coming out, it was as rosy as it might have been in my previous school. But my editor encouraged me to make it a little more rough, and after having moved out of my bubble, I knew what she meant.

As a librarian, I knew that some people would probably take issue with the book simply for its inclusion of gay characters. If I allowed myself to imagine any confrontations, I always played the role of the eloquent hero, vociferously tackling prejudice. In reality, it didn’t quite go down like that.

I was invited to meet with a book group at a small library. They had read Secrets and I went to discuss it with them. The conversation was going on nicely when a little old lady told me that she thought the book was fine – she had enjoyed it – but that it was inappropriate for children. She explained, “It makes it seem like homosexuality is normal.” I did not expect the challenge to come from a kindly woman. Her tone was both respectful and matter of fact. My strident reply: “I guess we’ll have to agree to disagree on that point.”

Some hero.

While I didn’t write Secrets as a political book, it definitely contains my point of view. And if the book itself didn’t convince her that it’s okay to be gay, well nothing I could say at that meeting would. I can't decide if my reaction is just rationalization, but I do think that it's unlikely that any one book is going to change people's mind. We need more of a chipping away. We need, in short, many books, many movies, many stories – and many lists like the Rainbow List that celebrate these stories. And that's why I'm so proud to be a part of it.

Libby: What does it take to succeed as a novelist?

Over at Blue Rose Girls there was a post about the role talent plays in getting published. That got me thinking about what it takes to have a successful career as a writer -- specifically, a writer of novels. Meghan was talking about it from an artist's point of view -- but I think that's different. For one thing, it's easier to get editors to look at picture books!

What do you think it takes to succeed as a novelist -- not just to get that first contract, but to build a career? In order of importance, here's what I think:

1. Talent -- without this spark, without inspiration, you won't get anywhere. Hard work will make you better, but without SOME talent, I don't think you can write novels anyone will want to read.

2. Hard work/discipline -- that talent does have to be supported, consistently supported, by what Jane Yolen calls BIC (butt-in-chair).

3. Good judgement -- about yourself, your talent, the business: knowing where to put your energy. Some people don't need this -- what they're best at and most interested in writing and the marketplace all align nicely; but (I think) many of us face hard decisions....and even those fortunate few need to decide whether, say, promoting their books is a good or bad use of their energy and time.

4. An editor who really loves and GETS your work.

5. The fortitude to conquer your demons or the good luck to not have any.

6. SOME luck -- at the beginning, to get a good agent (thank you stars and Sara!) and maybe even to get your novel read and published? Later, if you aspire to making it big, luck will definitely be needed for that. The linked essay by isn't about making it big, but the story of how his first book became a bestseller is a good (and unusually frank) example. I'm not saying that all it takes it make it big is luck -- the book needs to appeal to lots of people, too! -- but which of the good books published each year become blockbusters does depend as much upon luck and timing as merit and promotion, particularly if the author is unknown.

7. The support (if financial, so much the better!) of family or friends or both.

8. If you want your work to last: something to say. By "something to say" I don't mean a simple lesson, but the sum of what your novel says/means -- something only you could have said in that way. I put this last not because I think it is the least important but because I think it's quite possible to be published, and even build a successful career, without it. But the books that people are still reading a hundred years later all have it -- and maybe many we AREN'T reading a hundred years later have it too. Luck again?

More Good News for THE MORGUE AND ME!

THE MORGUE AND ME by John Ford has been nominated for a 2009 Agatha Award for Best Children's/Young Adult Novel Congratulations, John!

Erik: The Age of Enlightenment

Like many writers living abroad, I often peruse the internet to educate myself on what people in the U.S. are thinking about my novel, The Book of Samuel. One fourteen-year old reviewer said my novel was “…a nice short story…” another said that the writing was “eloquent,” but at the same time, “the words were complicated.” So I decided to search through LibraryThing and and Goodreads to see what people were saying about the books that not only inspired, but provided reference points for me while I was writing The Book of Samuel. While I found many wonderful reviews of classic books, I also wondered what kind of person would give say, Goodnight Moon, one out of five stars (for "...unjustified repetition..."). This is what I found:

Lord of the Flies: “The plot wasn't really to my liking, and more than one part made me want to toss my cookies… 1.5 out of 5 for severely awkward sausage-fests.”

The Sun Also Rises: “An absolute steaming pile, if you ask me.”

The Canterbury Tales: “I was bothered by how far out from modern society the attitudes were in this book.”

Paddy Clarke HA HA HA: “…I've come to accept that I loathe books written from the perspectives of children. It's a cheap method of making tragedy more tragic…”

The Divine Comedy: “I basically just get it, and it's not that great to me. It's just some guy who's putting people in a fictional Hell/Purgatory/Paradise where he thinks they'd belong. That's not that great of an idea to me, and actually comes off as a little adolescent.”

Their Eyes Were Watching God: “…reading this was like watching the idiot babysitter go in to the basement when you KNOW the scary monster is down there.”

To the Lighthouse: “As the first section to The Sound and The Fury is, this book was a tough read. They're both stream of conscious classics that have accomplished much, but, for a contemporary reader like myself, the freshness of that immediacy to thought is stripped of its power in an age where I can send my professor my essay with my phone.”

Interpreter of Maladies: “… the stories are not well described and the plots are too simple…”

Anna Karenina: I hated it so much, I didn't even finish it. This is the first time in my life where I actually did that. I think it's because I don't understand what it means to live on a farm.”

Disgrace: “A lifetime subscription to Playboy could not better calcify in my mind the idea of men, even fancily educated ones, as shallow, selfish, nymphette-obsessed douchebags. This book actually hurt my self-esteem.”

Jane Eyre: “The only thing worse than a period movie is a period book.”

Catcher In The Rye: “Holden Caulfield, collete (sic) student, has little tolerance for anything pretensious (sic), including the scramble for social status, drops out and leaves college on blind journey to anywhere searching his dreams and fantasies for meaning, understanding, and simple honest relational experience, finds none of this, suffers breakdown, ends up back home, finds that happiness can't be found by seeking for it, that it's inherently prior and must be chosen.”

The Bell Jar: “I prefer childbirth.”

Pride and Prejudice: “I'm totally enamored of the movie, which proves that the story is a good one, even if Austen's narrative style seems to be an exercise in tedium.”

The Great Gatsby: “…while the story manages to become somewhat interesting, the writing is pretty dreadful and original comment non existent.”

Wide Sargasso Sea: “Almost as bad as Virginia Woolf's junk. And that's bad.”

Huckleberry Finn: “One of the reasons why I hate this book because its confusing just everything, coming all at once. I have to stop and be like "Wait, whaat's (sic) happening here"? Also because of the hillbilly like language too. Another reason why I hate it, is because its sad, I don't like that a lot of people die, to me its just slighty (sic) annoying about people keep dying, cause you can get also bored with it.”

Gulliver’s Travels: “…lots of unreal mithical (sic) creatures.”

Don Quixote: “This is, undoubtedly, the worst book I have ever attempted to read. Surprisingly, I did enjoy the dinner theatre version of the musical, however.”

Robison: Knowing Your Audience: A Business Perspective

One of the most interesting lessons I learned about writing came from business school. I have my MBA in marketing, and while business doesn't often interact much with art, there is a pair of artists who often get discussed by marketers.

In 1994 two artists, Vitaly Komar and Alex Melamid, hired a market research firm to survey Americans and determine exactly what kind of art they love. Following all the best research methods to ensure statistical accuracy, they presented the respondents with dozens of questions: modern or traditional? religious or non-religious? abstract or realistic? The survey asked respondents to rank their favorite artists, to describe the art currently hanging in their home, and so on.

Blue and green were the most popular colors. Landscapes were preferred, especially those that showed water. Americans like paintings of children and animals (specifically wildlife). And the like paintings of historical figures.

So, Komar and Melamid created a painting that was designed to give Americans exactly what they want:



Now, obviously, there's a problem with the painting. Even though there's nothing inherently wrong with it--the technique is fine, the composition is decent, the subject matter is exactly what public opinion wanted--but the problem lies in what isn't there. There's no meaning, or heart, or purpose, or whatever you want to call those intagibles of art. When we look at this painting, there's nothing in it that stirs the soul. While I believe this painting is a masterpiece in the way it makes you think, it definitely would not be the type of thing most Americans would want to hang on their wall.

So, why is this discussed in marketing classes?

In business, when you're going to launch a new product you look at the market and see what customers want. You do this through surveys or focus groups or any number of ways; you ask them. But you don't stop there; now you have to figure out what makes your product better than everything else.

A classic positioning statement is laid out like this:

"My product is targeted at the ____________ market. It is similar to what is already available in these ways: __________________. However, it is superior to what is available in these ways: ___________."

That was the problem with Komar and Melamid. They gave the people exactly what the polls said they wanted, to the letter, but they didn't give them anything else. As one marketing professional put it: "Good businesses give their customers what they want; great businesses know their customers so well that they give the customers what they will want, before the customers even realize the want it."

So what does this mean for writers?

First, we have to know our audience. That means we need to read. In the words of Stephen King: "If you don't have the time to read, you don't have the time (or the tools) to write." We also need to talk to reader, to get involved in book discussions, or even just be involved with them. A friend of mine, Aprilynne Pike, says that she's involved with a church youth group and those teens are the first place she turns when she's working on her YA novels.

Second, we need to know our market, but not imitate what's already there. When I was first published in 2004, my editor told me that 60-70% of all the submissions she received began with "If you liked Harry Potter..." Then, a few years later it became "If you liked The Da Vinci Code..."

When Harry Potter became a sensation, many imitators jumped on the bandwagon and started churning out their stories about wizard schools. Some of these books were published and a few made some decent money. But none of them will ever be loved or remembered like the original.

However, better writers didn't imitate, but instead looked at why Harry Potter was successful: what emotions did it evoke? what need did it fill? In other words, they learned more about their audience by examining what their audience liked.

The folly of chasing the market is that you'll always be behind, always imitating others. But the folly of ignoring the market completely is that, while you might be constantly creating new things, your audience could be completed uninterested. Fortunately, it's not hard to know your audience. The solution isn't even as mercenary as keeping one foot in art and the other in business; the solution is simply: read, discuss, and create new things.